It had been claimed that the player, who spent time at Real Madrid, was likely to be the subject of a €20m bid from Arsenal and when the striker was asked about the reported interest he said coyly

I know nothing.

However Sky Sports are now reporting that Mainz manager Heidel has said

“Arsenal haven’t contacted us,”

“We don’t want to let our striker go in the winter transfer window. But that’s another situation if someone willing to pay 20 million Euros for him.”

The player himself added

“I don’t know anything about it. The season is long, I don’t know what will happen at the end of it.

“My aim is to collect as many points as we can and get as far as we can in the German Cup. Summer we can talk about what happened.”

Bild, the paper which originally linked Arsenal with a move for the player are now saying that he has a €15m buyout clause in his contract which would make the original information, and that of his manager, that a bid of €20m would be required all seem rather odd.